Volumen 6, Número 3. Sep-Dic 2009

FROM THE COUNTRYSIDE TO THE CITY: REFLECTIONS REGARDING WATER MANAGEMENT IN THE JALISCO HIGHLANDS

Abstrac

During the 20th Century, important changes came about in water
management in the Jalisco Highlands. The region, which is semiarid
and has rain for four months per year, of less than 900 mm,
has stood out during three centuries in fodder production for
cattle. During the second half of the 20th Century, the pattern of
settlement changed, becoming concentrated in half a dozen cities
of inhabitants dispersed in ranches, with which there were also
technological changes for water use: levees and docks on streams
ceased to be built because water was contaminated from lack of
treatment in nearby cities, which were increasingly large.
Livestock production does not use superficial water, because in
the last decade of the 20th Century, a federal decree was drawn
to cease stopping water runoffs so that they could reach the large
dams built to supply water to Guadalajara. The water, which is
polluted on the surface, is not used in agriculture because it is
only seasonal and livestock production is supplied from deep
wells, as are cities, for whose water supply wells have been built,
to extract water from internal aquifers.